Tag Archive | "Adam Eaton"

Koji Uehara is enjoying the best season of any Baltimore starting pitcher in 2008, but once again tonight, he wasn’t able to hang around long enough to make the night easy for Dave Trembley.

Uehara, usually throwing in the towel at the 90-95 pitch mark, surrendered much earlier tonight, hanging ’em up after just 3 innings of work due to “hamstring tightness”. That was the same injury that hampered him for three weeks in spring training.

Brian Bass came in and was decent, although he did allow a 5th inning home run that tied the game at 1-1.

Meanwhile, an interesting development has transpired with the Norfolk Tides tonight, as pitcher Chris Tillman has been pulled from his start after 2 innings of work (33 pitches…3 hits…2 unearned runs).

Is that a tip of the hand from the O’s that Tillman could be the starting pitcher on Tuesday night at home against Toronto, assuming the starting rotation spot previously occupied by Adam Eaton?

I’d be surprised if that winds up being the case, but his early departure tonight (and, apparently, it was not injury related) is certainly an eyebrow-raiser.

My early money was on David Hernandez getting recalled to take Eaton’s spot. It might not be great timing for Hernandez, though, as he pitched Friday evening and threw 110 pitches. I assume the O’s would not want to hand him his first major league start on 3 days rest. In that case, Jason Berken could be the guy getting the ball on Tuesday. He last started on Thursday night.

And there’s always the possibility that Uehara’s injury is serious enough to warrant a trip to the DL, which would necessitate another roster move before next Koji’s next scheduled start.

Comments Off on O’s/Nats Update: Koji hurt (again); Tillman leaves Norfolk game early

Well, that didn’t take long. About four hours after I wrote the blog below, Adam Eaton was released.

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Anyone with even a passing interest of Orioles baseball over the last decade is familiar with the term, “dog days of August”.

That’s the month where the team officially falls off the sports radar screen in town, as pigskins start flying in Westminster and 70% of the teams in the American League hover around playoff contention. Baltimore’s in the “other” 30% category.

There won’t be any “dogs days of August” in 2009, you can bet on that.

They’ve been replaced — by the “dog days of May”.

It’s May 22 and the team is a season-high 9 games under .500 after getting whacked three straight nights in New York. A possible get-well weekend looms in Washington DC and then it’s back to playing the varsity when the Blue Jays fly into town on Monday.

Here we are — not even to June yet — and the season has fizzled into a memory of early-season wins and a flash-in-the-pan start that saw the club win 6 of their first 8 games.

I can do the math if you can’t: In the 33 games since shooting out of the gate like Rachel Alexandra, the Birds are 10-23.

That brings us to Tuesday night at Camden Yards.

Barring anything unforseen like a rain-out (or, his departure), Adam Eaton is slated to start on Tuesday against Toronto.

That just can’t happen.

Eaton’s ERA is now 8.56 after Thursday’s shellacking in New York. God Bless the guy…he’s certainly not TRYING to be bad, but he just doesn’t have the goods anymore.

Why he was signed in the first place is anyone’s guess. Andy MacPhail’s track record in Baltimore is fairly decent after nearly 24 months on the job, but Eaton is not (was not, hopefully) one of AM’s better moves.

I’ll go ahead and be blunt and to the point, since that’s what the apologists can’t do: Adam Eaton should be replaced, effectively immediately, by SOMEONE from the team’s stable of talented minor league pitchers. My personal selection is David Hernandez, who has become a strikeout machine in the minor leagues. Give him a shot to do what Eaton evidently can’t do: get through 3 innings without getting battered.

Yeah, I know, the Kool Aid drinkers will spit orange liquid all over their keyboards when they think about the notion of “giving up” on Eaton and throwing Hernandez to the wolves. “It might wreck his confidence” is what you’ll hear.

That’s funny, Nolan Reimold and Brad Bergesen look like they have plenty of confidence right about now.

If you’re good, and you’re relatively successful, you’ll be confident.

If you stink, you might lose confidence.

I can’t imagine Hernandez can be worse than Eaton. And, like Bergesen has displayed, he might even be BETTER than Eaton.

The Orioles are the only organization I know who scout, draft and groom really good players and then becomes petrified to play them in the event they might actually turn out to be good.

God forbid David Hernandez turns out to be decent…they might actually have to pay him a representative salary.

Or, once he gets decent, they can just cut his salary by $120,000 like they did with their ace this year. That move did wonders for Jeremy Guthrie, huh?

The MASN marketing motto, “what’s your defining moment?” should be applied to this Tuesday at Camden Yards.

If Adam Eaton is still on the roster and starts Tuesday night’s game, that’s ALL you need to know about 2009. The team is absolutely NOT really trying to win if he makes the start against Toronto.

Talk about “defining moments”.

It’s time to stop trying to hoodwink the paying customers and give these kids in the minor leagues a chance to play.

They brought Reimold up – almost against their wishes – and he’s outplayed Felix Pie by about 125% since joining the team in Kansas City last Thursday. That one stings MacPhail because Pie was another of his Windy City projects but the truth is the truth is the truth. Nolan Reimold is a better baseball player than Felix Pie. And guess what? He’s OUR player…an Orioles draft pick and product of the improving farm system.

This scam of not putting the best team on the field has to come to an end. It’s time for the Adam Eaton era to conclude, as well.

Tuesday night at 7:05 pm, someone other than Eaton better stroll to that pitcher’s mound at Camden Yards.

The fans deserve better.

They should, frankly, demand better.

It’s May 22 and the season is essentially worthless unless they start promoting some of those young arms and give people a reason to want to go out to the ballpark and watch them perform.

Comments Off on Next Tuesday is O’s “defining moment” of the young season (Update: Eaton released)

This is a depressing weekend for me. This will be the first time since August I will not be including my “weekend picks”, as no local college teams are playing football, basketball, or lacrosse.

I could pick the Orioles’ games; but that’s just depressing.

However, I do have a question. Is anyone going down to Nationals Park this weekend that might not have gone to a game had the series been at OPACY? I fall into that category myself, as I will be headed down Sunday, and admittedly wouldn’t go this weekend if the Birds were at home. But the chance to go down at yell at some Redskins fans DOES appeal to me.

-There IS a local college team playing lacrosse on the women’s side this weekend, and I think the Terps will be there until Sunday’s Championship game. I’ll say the Terps top Carolina tonight 9-6, and then fall to Northwestern Sunday 12-9. I guess I did make weekend picks after all.

-Chris Waters will make the start for Adam Eaton on Tuesday. Take it to the bank.

-Congratulations to Ralph Friedgen, who I hadn’t seen until his appearance on First Take yesterday on ESPN2. He looked really good; and I think it’s very cool that he had dedicated himself to his health this offseason.

After dinner I took the kids to the park by our house. My son asked if we could watch the kids practicing baseball on the two fields by the playground. I said sure and we sat on the bench and watched them. He asked me questions and I explained what BP was, what the fielding drills were, and why the pitchers were throwing on the side. On the way home I asked him if he wanted to watch the Orioles game with me. He said he would like to watch the game so we put the O’s on. It didn’t take 2 innings for him to see we aren’t very good.

When a 5 year old says, “the kids at the park were better than these guys,” you know it’s bad. Adam Eaton was terrible. The first two innings were a clinic on how not to pitch. His pitches didn’t have much movement. He looked like he was throwing BP. Now, he is 2-5 with an 8.56 ERA. Enough is enough! It’s time to bring another pitcher up from Norfolk. I’m not sure who it will be. My choice would be Dave Hernandez.

He isn’t the most heralded of the pitchers in the minors but he does have talent. He is 24 and more mature than the others. He was ranked as our ninth best prospect.At this point, he cannot be any worse than Adam Eaton. If he can throw strikes and keep us in the game it will be a huge improvement.The hitters have lost faith in Eaton. Hell, Eaton has lost faith in Eaton. Someone has to come up; it’s just a matter of whom.

After the early debacle of the O’s, we switched over to Versus and watched the hockey game. We missed the first two goals sticking with the O’s a bit too long. We got into the game quickly. The pace of the first period was fast and furious. There were four goals scored in the first 9 minutes. The game went back and forth until the Pens took charge halfway through the 3rd period. If the first 2 games of the Conference Finals are any indication, it looks like it’s going to be a rematch of last year’s finals between Detroit and Pittsburgh

I don’t know if anyone else read about it but Shaq is attending broadcaster’s school at Syracuse. He is taking a crash course in broadcasting 101. Does this mean Shaq will be trading in his sneakers for a microphone? Stay tuned, there could be a “Big” entrance into the announcer’s booth.

For baseball fans, there are few things finer in life than getting home from a long day of work, cracking open a cold beer, and turning on the ballgame to relax and have some fun. It’s an escape…a reprieve…part of the fabric of Americana.

The problem in Baltimore is this ideal experience is no more than a distant memory or a faraway dream. The reality is watching the Orioles this year—and for the last 11 seasons—feels more like taking out the trash or doing the laundry. It feels like an obligation to a family member that you cannot avoid. Diehards continue to watch, looking for any glimmer of hope such as the sparkling play of young Adam Jones.

However, for every bright spot like Jones, the continued improvement of Nick Markakis, and the desperate hope for the crop of minor league pitching, there is the horrendous starting pitching, foolish baserunning, and invisible late-inning offense. Quite frankly, it’s not easy—or enjoyable—to watch.

No matter how much MASN tries to brainwash its audience—and believe me, it’s propaganda at its finest—the obvious and painful truth is staring us right in the face.

Orioles Magic energized the Charm City in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and in the exact opposite way, Orioles “Black Magic” continues to suck the very life out of this city every summer, as it has for over a decade. It’s why many Baltimoreans gravitated to the Washington Capitals’ run in the NHL playoffs, and it’s why fans are already seeing purple when we’re still two months away from the first morning practice at McDaniel College. Even MASN’s Amber Theoharis was wearing purple and black tonight!

The “Black Magic” is what has turned Camden Yards—the place to be in the mid-90s when the Orioles were winning—into an empty palace of bad dreams.

We’re desperate for something—anything—to distract us from the harsh reality that is the Orioles’ 2009 season. It isn’t even about the present state of the roster. In fact, there weren’t very many moves I would have made differently to shape the current roster—with the obvious exception of subjecting fans to the pitching of Adam Eaton. It’s the simple reality that this “Black Magic” continues to depress an otherwise rabid sports town for the 12th year in a row.

Think back to January, and the Ravens’ improbable run to the AFC Championship. The town was basking in a purple haze of excitement and pride. The Ravens make us proud to be from Baltimore, and we’d love to feel the same way about the Orioles again—the way Baltimoreans felt in the 60s, 70s, and 80s when the organization was the finest in baseball.

Even while tempering expectations—something we’ve grown quite used to in the last 12 years—hope still springs eternal in April. Maybe—just maybe—the Orioles could have surprised us this year. But only six weeks later, what little optimism was present on Opening Day is long gone with the Orioles at 16-25 and in last place in the American League East.

Yes, the eventual promotion of Matt Wieters and the reports from the minor leagues will stir some interest, but it still figures to be a long summer until the Ravens kick off in September.

As bad as the first two months have been, the future does look brighter than it has in a very long time, but herein lays the problem. The unknown. As promising as Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta, Brian Matusz, and the rest of the farm may be, there is no guarantee these young players will pull the organization out of the abyss.

It’s downright nauseating to consider the possibility that these pitchers won’t fare much better than the many failed prospects of the last 20 years. This 12-year losing streak has to turn at some point, right? We can only hope.

When it inevitably does—and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later for everyone’s sake—it will be important to never forget this miserable stretch of baseball as much as we all will want to.

Much like we treasure the success—and more importantly, the mere presence—of the Ravens after not having NFL football for 12 years, it will be equally important to cherish having meaningful baseball in Baltimore again after having this long era of “Black Magic” suck the passion and energy out of the city.

There is no doubt that Baltimore can be a two-sport town, and there is no better dream than to have the Orioles playing in the World Series the same weekend the Ravens are whipping the Steelers at M&T Bank Stadium. As silly and impossible as it sounds today, it’s the only way to persevere through the black cloud lurking over Camden Yards for the past 12 years.

But until that day comes, the Orioles “Black Magic” will continue to plague a city that has largely forgotten what winning baseball even looks or feels like. Watching baseball will continue to feel more like a chore than an enjoyable diversion.

One day—and hopefully soon—we’ll see the return of Orioles Magic, but until then, we’ll continue to fight the “Black Magic” of another miserable summer.

This evening at the new Yankee Stadium the Orioles and New York Yankees will wrap-up their three-game mid-week set with tonight’s finale beginning at 7:05pm. Tomorrow the O’s will be down in Washington D.C. to meet the Nationals in the last series of their current 10-game roadtrip.

Last night the guys in black and orange were once again on the wrong end of another lopsided decision in the Bronx. Jeremy Guthrie yielded back-to-back-to-back homers to Nick Swisher, Robinson Cano, and Melky Cabrera in the bottom of the second and the rest was history in the eventual 11-4 Yankee rout. After taking the first two of three in Kansas City to start the trip, the O’s have now dropped three of their last four and are in danger of being swept by a division opponent for the third time already this season.

Adam Eaton gets another chance to figure it out on the mound tonight in his eighth start of the year. Eaton was absolutely crushed in his last outing, going five innings and giving up seven runs on 10 hits in KC. His ERA now stands at 7.93 and hasn’t been under 7.00 at any point of the entire season. Eaton could be pitching to keep his spot in the rotation tonight; Mark Hendrickson has already lost his spot to Rich Hill, and with Chris Tillman and the rest of the cavalry trying to beat down the door for a promotion, Eaton could be the next man out with another disastrous start.

The Yankees, now winners of eight straight, will have Joba Chamberlain on the bump to face the O’s for the second time in as many weeks. The 23-year old right-hander is 2-1 with a 3.76 ERA so far on the season and picked up a win over the Orioles on Mother’s Day at Camden Yards just 11 days ago. What most will remember about that game was Aubrey Huff’s two dramatic fist-pumps after touching Chamberlain up for a three-run homer in the first. Huff said it was in direct response to Chamberlain’s excessive celebrations on mound following strikeouts… so we’ll just have to stay tuned tonight to see if Chamberlain foolishly comes unnecessarily inside with a fastball when Huff is in the batter’s box.

I’m glad Drew was fired up about the Orioles’ most recent disaster; because it is particularly difficult for me to feel any emotion about them.

When I write my “Top 10 Baseball Distractions” column every week, I often get comments like “You don’t really think an episode of ‘Pros vs. Joes’ is more exciting than baseball, do you?”

And the answer is…..yes.

I watched the Orioles last night, but when I started getting angry, I changed the channel. I watched the Cavs and Magic (rooting for Joe Smith); and I watched a few minutes of American Idol-which I know NOTHING about.

I always go back to the Orioles; right after flipping has allowed me to settle down again. Staying with them would just lead to the type of anger and frustration you heard from Drew this morning. I take them in doses; much like many of the things I love in my life. (Insert your own joke about my girlfriend here.)

-Quick question for you. We’re just about 5 months into the year, so it is WAY too early to make a judgment on this, but who has stood out for you as a potential candidate to be SI’s “Sportsman of the Year”? I’m sure if LeBron or Kobe wins the NBA Title (especially LeBron), they’ll be the frontrunner from the first half of the year; but I think there’s another worthy candidate who we’ve seen a bit more of locally.

How about Calvin Borel?

The award has never been claimed by anyone in the horse racing industry (which is probably justified), but Borel has the chance to do something no rider has ever done before (win all Triple Crown races on more than one horse). And more impressively, he actually had a serious impact on the most important race.

It’s more than a longshot; but if Borel wins the Belmont (on either horse), he should certainly be considered.

-Maryland and West Virginia SHOULD play every year. That’s just about a no-brainer.

This summer of ’09 chess game the Orioles are playing has become what every other chess game becomes — boring.

Wake me up when the team starts trying to win again.

Another night in New York, another night of choking on the Big Apple. Base running blunders galore, a shabby effort from the starting pitcher and one more evening where I started using the remote around 8:45 pm.

After all, if the team isn’t fully dedicated to keeping me entertained, why should I be fully dedicated to them?

The answer: At this point, I’m not.

Is Dave Trembley the guy responsible for calling that insane 3rd inning one-out steal/hit and run “thing” that resulted in Nick Markakis striking out and Brian Roberts getting caught in a rundown for out number three? Memo to Dave: Aubrey Huff was up next. He’s pretty good. Right handed pitcher vs. left handed hitter. Why “dummy” yourself out of the inning with a runner on 3rd base (and Roberts at first) and one of your team’s best power hitters at the plate, trailing 4-0?

Those are decisions I can’t defend (and won’t) when the Anti-DT Club calls in today and starts bashing the skipper.

And, if it’s New York on a Wednesday night, that must mean Melvin Mora is going to commit a base-running gaffe. Mission accomplished last evening, as Mora inexplicably tried to stretch a long single into a double in the 6th inning after the O’s had cut the lead to 5-3.

These baserunning mistakes that take runners off the bases and remove the bat from the hands of the team’s select-few decent hitters are precisely why the team is mired in last place. And Mora, God Bless Him, is routinely involved in those blunders.

Afterwards, everyone raved about how Jeremy Guthrie “gutted it out”. Was that before or after he created his own version of “The Comcast Triple Play” by giving up three straight homers to Swisher, Cano and Cabrera? There’s an old Charley Eckman audio clip that has him railing against the U.S. basketball team in the Goodwill Games where “The Coach” says, “what’s goodwill stand for, going down there (Cuba) and getting our butts kicked?” — I thought about that that last night as I heard the wordsmiths shower Guthrie with praise and “gutted it out” references. “Gutted it out” is code word for “didn’t pitch up to his capability”.

Here’s where I should remind everyone that the O’s cut Guthrie’s salary by $120,000 in spring training (for no good reason)…but I won’t do it.

Guthrie is the team’s #1 starter. He might be the ace by default, but he’s the ace nonetheless. And he needs to start pitching like it. Or, come the end of July, it might be time for Jeremy Guthrie to “gut it out” for a playoff contender.

Speaking of announcers and wordsmiths — I watched the post-game “analysis” on MASN and could NOT believe my eyes when Hunter and Dempsey started reviewing the events and Hunter said, “OK, it’s 4-0 Yankees already when they score here to make it 5-0…and the O’s started their comeback, Rick.”

Are you FREAKING kidding me? You’re doing a show that is supposed to document the game and how one team won and the other lost and you skip the most important element of the game — the three home runs in succession bashed by the Yankees in the 2nd inning. You want people to tune into the post-game show for the in-depth analysis and critical eye provided by a former World Series MVP and you don’t show Guthrie’s 2nd inning effort and the three home runs? The 2nd inning was the story of the game. “It’s already 4-0 when the Yankees scored to make it 5-0 and then the comeback started…” – *Taps Hunter on the shoulder: “Jim, exactly HOW did it get to be 4-0 in the first place?”

What a joke.

So when do we all start caring about the team again? When the “calvary” comes up and makes an impact? OK, I’m on board with that. I truly AM excited to see guys like Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta, David Hernandez head to the mound. I’m not sure if they’ll be any good (although Robby Hammock called Tillman “can’t miss” on my show on Tuesday) when they get here, but I’ve bought into “the plan” hook-line-and-sinker and I’m eager to see the front line of The Calvary show up in Baltimore.

At this stage, can The Calvary be worse than Adam Eaton?

And if I hear that “confidence wrecking” theory one more time, I’ll jump off the Key Bridge. How the hell are you going to wreck a kid’s confidence who gets to fly all over the country, pitch in ballpark-shrines, field questions from pretty 20-something female baseball fans in the lobby of the team hotel and get paid for doing it? “Confidence wrecked”…what a laughable theme that is.

If you’re good, confidence shouldn’t be an issue.

I don’t think Brad Bergesen is struggling with his confidence right about now. Neither is Nolan Reimold, who hit a home run last evening off of the great Mariano Rivera. Reimold’s not a pitcher, of course, but I don’t think his confidence is in question this morning, do you?

I haven’t really spent many nights in front of the TV getting worked up about the team’s woeful ’09 performance because, as I’ve said many times, “if they don’t care about winning, neither do I.”

Last night, for some reason, was an exception.

I found Trembley’s managerial decisions to be whacky, Guthrie’s pitching not good enough, Mora’s baserunning to be just plain dumb and the post-game show on the team’s flagship to be so obviously on the take it was unwatchable.

Then again, that’s also part of the Master Plan, I assume.

After all, if we’re not talking about those four things on today’s show, what O’s topic ARE we going to talk about, right?

Without The Calvary, Matt Wieters and winning, it’s the same old, same old, same old, same old, same old, same old — night after night after night after night after night after night.

It’s actually MORE boring than chess, truth be told.

Comments Off on O’s today: Wednesday loss in New York sums up the season – silly

I will admit to being a bit heartbroken seeing the Nuggets lose to the Lakers last night. I will admit that I am openly rooting for Carmelo Anthony, as I enjoy seeing the success of a Baltimore kid….despite the fact that he went to Syracuse instead of Maryland.

I heard ‘Melo was seen on ESPN yesterday wearing a Red Sox hat; and I’ll admit that it bothered me. But this is the same guy who has MULTIPLE Ravens tattoos, which he showed off proudly when he was honored at M&T Bank Stadium for winning the gold medal at last Summer’s Beijing Olympics. The guy knows where he’s from, and he LOVES Baltimore.

And someone over at Camden Yards SHOULD think about shipping a hat out to Denver…

-While the Ravens have downplayed the various injuries to players who aren’t fully participating in Passing Camp; I have to remind everyone that the Ravens do NOT have to be honest about everyone’s health in the offseason. It doesn’t appear as though anyone’s injuries are serious, but you really don’t know.

With Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta amongst the Orioles’ prospects on a blistering pace right now; it will be really difficult for fans to watch Adam Eaton go out start after start and continue to struggle. The Orioles probably want to hold off on bringing up another of their “cavalry” of pitchers until mid-to-late Summer at the earliest; but watching Adam Eaton is going to get fans a bit riled up.

-Heading to Owings Mills tonight to check out Ravens passing camp. With a battle for the backup QB job, it will be interesting to see what John Beck and Troy Smith show. I still get the feeling that John Beck will ultimately be the backup QB, but I think he will get the job so the Ravens can use Troy Smith in more gadget plays.

-Philadelphia has made a STRONG push to get all five Army/Navy games between 2010 and 2014; and the city of Baltimore really needs to take the push just as seriously. Terry Hasseltine was hired by the state of Maryland to bring major sporting events to the area last Summer, and so far I’ve been unmoved by what has been brought. The Chelsea-AC Milan match is a good start; but the city lost the Dew Action Sports Tour; and the future of Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour in the state is also in question. Navy/Notre Dame, Navy/Maryland, and Navy/Ohio State all have a future in Baltimore; but Army/Navy is the biggest of them all; and will generate (arguably) the most revenue for the state. With no arena to bring in NCAA Tournament events just yet, and Pimlico really only being used for Sporting Events a couple days a year; this is a significantly important event.